Diablo’s Memory1: A larger and cheaper form of main memory

Diablo Technologies is spruiking a new kind of memory.

The new product, Memory1, is a larger, cheaper form of main memory that uses flash storage instead of DRAM to provide a cheap-and-deep option for in-memory applications. Memory1 puts the same kind of flash that you’d find in SSDs into DDR4 compatible DIMMs, just like sticks of memory. Unlike Diablo’s ULLtraDIMM product, Memory1 is not persistent, so the flash doesn’t store state, again just like memory. And unlike DRAM, you can fit a lot more flash onto a single DIMM: 256GB, which is four times the largest DRAM module, according to Diablo. Flash itself is cheaper than DRAM, and getting cheaper every day, so putting a lot of memory into a server becomes much more affordable.